![]() ![]() The starting gate was at an elevation of 1,950 m (6,398 ft) above sea level, with a vertical drop of 870 m (2,854 ft). Klammer won the gold medal, Russi took the silver, and Herbert Plank of Italy was the bronze medalist. Franz Klammer of Austria was the defending World Cup downhill champion and led the current season he had also won the pre-Olympic World Cup downhill at Patcherkofel a year earlier in January 1975. The defending world champion was David Zwilling of Austria, who had recently retired Bernhard Russi of Switzerland was the defending Olympic champion. I want to help.The Men's Downhill competition of the 1976 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria, was held at Patscherkofel on Thursday, 5 February, on the same course as in 1964. Klammer says, “Klaus had no insurance, but doctors cared for him because his name was Klammer. Klammer’s younger brother was paralyzed as the result of a crash during a downhill training run in 1977. He also manages the Franz Klammer Foundation for severely injured athletes. Today Franz Klammer is a paid ambassador for several ski resorts and corporations. He won the famous (and notorious) Hahnenkamm downhill 4 times – Didier Cuche won his 5 th Hahnenkamm last January. He won a total of 25 World Cup downhills – a record Lindsey Vonn broke last year. Klammer would go on to have a remarkable downhill career setting records that have only been beaten in recent years. At a recent event held in Aspen to honor Bob Beattie, Klammer commented: “I always question myself, did my run make Bob more famous, or (his) commentary make me famous?” The run was one long series of recoveries, but Klammer never backed off! Regardless of the sport, people recognize when an athlete puts it all on-the-line to achieve a win.įor American TV viewers Bob Beattie’s frenetic commentary only added more hype to Klammer’s run. Many have labeled Klammer’s downhill Olympic win as the greatest downhill run ever – some have even called it the greatest ski race ever! What made it so memorable? Well, for one thing, you didn’t have to be a skier to recognize that Klammer was on the edge of disaster for almost the entire run. Regular contributor Gary Tomlinson was very quick to correctly identify Franz Klammer as the winner of the men’s downhill. That meant that Klammer had made up over a half second in the last third of the course. He let the skis run taking the fastest line and just hung on! When he crossed the finish line he beat Russi’s time by. All downhillers know that to win you have to take chances and for the last third of that Olympic downhill, Klammer did nothing but take chances. 2 seconds behind Russi’s time two-thirds of the way down the course. He was fast, but a couple of mistakes including catching too much air off a bump left him. Klammer in his yellow speed-suit sprang out of the starting gate and the mostly Austrian crowd of 60,000 began to roar. Russi had won the downhill gold at the 1972 Olympics and appeared to have a good time on the Innsbruck course since he led the nearest competitor by more than half a second. On race day after 14 racers, Bernhard Russi of Switzerland was in the lead. This was generally seen as a disadvantage since the course would degrade with each racer. In those days the top seeds drew for the first 15 slots so Klammer would be the last of the top seeds to race. The men’s downhill was the first alpine skiing event held at the Olympics and Klammer drew the 15 th starting position. By the way, the one downhill he didn’t win that season was because he lost a ski! The previous season Klammer had won 8 of the 9 World Cup downhills making him the prohibitive favorite at the Olympics. Most of the home country pressure in 1976 fell on a 22 year-old downhiller from Mooswald, Austria, named Franz Klammer. You may recall that Denver was supposed to host the 1976 Olympics, but that’s a story for a future column. The same was true in 1976 when Innsbruck, Austria hosted the Winter Olympics. When events like the World Championships are held in Austria, the Austrian skiers are under great pressure to perform. Biddle Duke’s article last week about the World Championships being held in Schladming Austria highlighted how seriously Austrians take Alpine ski racing.
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